The Happy Meal has been a staple in kids' lives since 1979, offering children their choice of a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets, along with french fries, a drink, and — of course — the beloved toy. But with McDonald's making a concentrated effort to "health-ify" its food, the Happy Meal has undergone changes, like the addition of apple slices and milk as sides. Now, McDonald's just announced its latest "healthy" move, one that involves removing the cheeseburger from the Happy Meal menu altogether, and it's sparked a surprising amount of controversy.
This week, McDonald's announced that it's eliminating both cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from its Happy Meal options.
A post on Medium by company executives revealed that in the coming years, McDonald's plans to focus on offering a wider variety of balanced meals and "reinforce responsible marketing to children."
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The executives claim they're working with Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a public health company that works to reinforce "healthy eating habits and active lifestyles kids learn at school and at home," to roll out new menu options by 2022.
While the full roll-out is still a few years off, parents can expect to see cheeseburgers and chocolate milk leave the kids' menu by June of this year. Only plain hamburgers, six-piece chicken nuggets, and four-piece chicken nuggets will be advertised as the main item in Happy Meals.
Needless to say, parents are less than impressed by the changes.
Many feel like the chain is taking away their right to choose what they feed their kids — especially since many of us already get flak for letting our kids eat Happy Meals at all.
Others wondered why McDonald's is trying to make a healthy Happy Meal when no one thinks of them as a health food anyway.
For most kids, Happy Meals are more of a treat, not something they eat every day.
And, of course, plenty of people bashed parents for giving their kids Happy Meals in the first place.
But it wasn't all bad -- plenty of parents agreed with the company's decision to change Happy Meals.
One Twitter user claimed the company is "losing billions of dollars" because parents want healthy food options for their kids.
While McDonald's has seen a decrease in profit in recent years, experts suspect that has more to do with the rising costs of its ingredients and deviation from its original menu than the fact that parents don't think it's healthy enough.
And others offered solutions to the "problems" caused by the changes -- like just asking for a slice of cheese.
It's important to note that cheeseburgers and chocolate milk will still be available to order with Happy Meals, even if they aren't listed as options on the meal's menu. Still, parents who view Happy Meals as an inexpensive fun thing to treat their kids with definitely aren't happy right now.
But McDonald's doesn't seem shaken by the response. "Today's announcement represents meaningful progress to impact kids' calories, saturated fat, sodium and added sugar in Happy Meal bundles as offered on menu boards — and to promote more water," Howell Wechsler, CEO of Alliance for a Healthier Generation, said in an official press release. "This sets a high bar, and we hope other industry leaders will follow suit."